1 school, 4 locations: Trenton Central High School students to be split up as work begins on new school

For the last 82 years students have streamed through the front doors and into the grand foyer of Trenton Central High School’s Chambers Street campus each September for the first day of school, but this year on Sept. 8, no students will cross the threshold of the building, which is set for partial demolition and renovations to be completed over the next four years.

Instead, the student body will be split across four locations while the work is ongoing. Furniture and supplies have already been moved into the other buildings, all of which were given their certificate of occupancy this week, said Principal Hope Grant, who oversaw from the planning stages the move to temporary facilities during construction. Grant said she is thankful that the move into the new locations has gone smoothly.

“We were successful to have this all take place and have it done on time,” Grant said.
“We did it,” Grant said. “And this was a monumental task.”

Each building will be home to a separate “small learning community,” a specific focus area for students which has been a part of the school’s curriculum for several years.

The visual and performing arts SLC will be housed at 544 Chestnut Ave., next door to the communications SLC at 520 Chestnut Ave.

The Science Technology Engineering and Math community will be located with the hotel, restaurant and tourism business SLC at 135 E. Hanover St.

The ninth-grade academy will be located at 151 N. Warren St.

“It won’t be perfect, but we will get there,” Grant said, expecting some bumps in the road come the first day of school.

The fractured school community will mean Grant is principal in four separate buildings, something she said will be admittedly difficult to juggle, but not impossible.

“It will be a collaboration with the community,” Grant said, noting that communication will be important so students and parents know where to find her if there is an issue or they need a meeting.

In striving for unity even in the split school, Grant said the district is working on installing the appropriate technology so that she can address the entire school community at the same time, no matter what building they are in, via the PA system.

She also is looking to create a cultural connection between the different locations.
“We are Trenton High, the home of the Tornados,” she said. All of the buildings will have banners listing the school name, their individual SLC, and the school’s Tornado mascot.

But the separation will not be a bad thing, as Grant sees it.

“This gives us something we never got to have — a close-knit, smaller school environment,” she said.

Grant hopes that the smaller schools will create a closer bond between students and teachers in their SLCs, which can be translated back to the Chambers Street building when construction is completed.

In the visual and performing arts building on Chestnut Avenue, new floors have been installed and large windows allow lots of natural light to stream into the 14 classrooms.

“This is the beginning of the new Trenton High,” Grant said while walking down a hallway there yesterday.

Adrienne Hill, vice principal for the SLC, said she is excited about the possibilities the new space presents to change the way things are done and create a real home for the artists who will attend classes in the building.

“This space will be for a mural,” Hill said while walking up a stairwell to the building’s second floor.

Hill said she wants to let the artists, dancers and singers express themselves throughout the building.

She hopes that creativity will continue in the classes where an arts teacher will be paired up with a general education teacher to collaborate on ways to integrate both into each class.

The Chestnut Avenue building, she said, is a far cry from the Chambers Street high school, which opened in 1932, and whose dark hallways, buckled floor boards and leaky roof were a daily battle for students, teachers and maintenance staff.

After years of complaints about the conditions inside the rundown building, the state Schools Development Authority agreed to fund and complete the reconstruction project. Demolition is slated to begin in 2015.

In the new alternate buildings, there will be some challenges. Laptop carts will replace computer labs and there will be one central library with “satellite libraries” in each of the buildings.

Sports teams will practice either at the fields at the school, where temporary trailers have been installed to be used as locker rooms, or in one of the other city schools.

“Everyone has had to make sacrifices,” Grant said.

Grant said she is confident the staff and students will be up for the challenge that this transitional period will bring.